Today is New Year's Eve, and ironically enough, even though I am considered "King of the Hipsters" in some quarters (thanks for that, Bill and Renee!), this is usually a very low key evening for me. And so, as I have done on previous New Year's Eves, I am featuring a photograph of my mother Mary (on the left) and her cousin Marie (the live wire of the family, as can be clearly seen in the photo), welcoming the coming of the New Year. I have no idea what year this was, but I suspect it was taken some time in the 1950s in the basement of the two-flat Marie and her husband Ed owned in Evergreen Park, Illinois. Tragically, Marie died of cancer at a fairly young age. Marie's parents, Al (a Spanish-American war veteran, no less) and Irene (my mother's aunt), who lived on the top floor of the two-flat, were given 30 days to move out of their apartment not too long after Marie passed away. This was a very sad episode in my mother's family, and they never forgave Ed, who evidently wanted to sell the place and get away from such tragic memories. In any case, it is a truly good thing we cannot see the future, and fortunately, on this happy New Year's Eve, it was not a concern. As the old song featured not too long ago in a Woody Allen movie goes, "Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think."
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